Schools/Sports

World Language Student

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The World Languages Department at Suffield High School is honoring Gabrielle Stevens as its Student of the Month for May. Gabby is currently a student in the Honors Level French 4 class at Suffield High School, where she consistently performs at an extremely advanced level in this course. Gabby is descriptive, imaginative and accurate in her writing, and she speaks comfortably in French in class. When describing her daily activities or discussing conversation topics in class, she regularly inquires about new words or expressions and then integrates them into her speaking. Her class has many dynamic speakers and strong communicators in French, and Gabby helps to elevate this strong level of engagement and involvement in the group.

Schools/Sports

Good Friend Honored

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Several of these Suffield High School seniors, pictured on May 8, said they were the ones who created this heartfelt memorial in the school parking lot to honor Brianna Mailloux, their popular classmate and star athlete who was killed walking on I-91 in Windsor on April 19.

Schools/Sports

Shop Rite Community Service Award

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Miriam Dugas is a senior at SHS and has been a member of the Suffield Regional Agriscience Program for the past four years. She has grown up on her family’s dairy farm, Smyth’s Trinity Farm in Enfield, Connecticut all of her life where she assists with milking the herd and working in the dairy processing plant and store. Throughout Miriam’s high school career, she has been an active member of the Suffield FFA, where she participated in various competitions and events, such as serving as a National FFA Convention chapter delegate. In addition to her involvement in the agriscience program, Miriam has been an active student athlete, serving as this year’s co-captain for the Suffield field hockey team. Outside of school, Miriam continues to be involved in the 4-H organization, where she shows sheep and dairy cattle at various fairs and expositions.

Schools/Sports

SHS Volleyball Marathon

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Organized by Suffield High School’s chapter of the National Honor Society, the Volleyball Marathon (VBM) was held again this year from Friday, March 23 until Saturday, March 24. The annual event is a tradition at SHS and students look forward to a night of competitive volleyball games with their classmates. Each of the 31 co-ed teams that participated was composed of between eight and ten members. Beginning at 7 p.m., almost 300 students entered the Commons wearing team shirts and carrying snacks, games, blankets and other possessions for the long night. Volunteer chaperones, teachers and administrators checked the students in and NHS members led teams to their designated spaces.

Schools/Sports

Agriscience Update

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On March 29, our Suffield Agriscience Program hosted Accepted Student Day, where all accepted eighth grade students from various towns came for one huge shadow day. During the school day they learned about FFA, the student leadership organization, and had the opportunity to ask students on a panel about life at Suffield High School. The FFA Officer Team and the eighth graders participated in a school scavenger hunt, giving these incoming students the opportunity to tour the school and meet some of the teachers. This was the program’s first Accepted Student Day and visiting eighth graders all seemed excited about the program and excited to become a Wildcat next year!

Schools/Sports

Winning Programmers Honored

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Three Suffield students went to Washington, D. C., on their spring vacation, but not for a holiday. As reported in the March issue of the Observer, Marissa and Gianna Guzzo and their team-mate Alexandra Smith were the 2017 Connecticut Second District winners of the Congressional App Challenge, a national program now in its third year in which about 4,900 students participated last fall. The Suffield team was invited to visit Washington on April 11 to 13, and on April 12, Demo Day, the House of Representatives became the House of Code. Along with over 200 winners from 39 states, they presented their app to members of congress in a ceremony in The Rayburn Congressional Office Building, and Representative Joe Courtney of the Second District honored them with certificates of achievement. The team demonstrated their app to the lawmakers and pitched it to industry experts from the tech field, including Microsoft and Amazon, and participated in interactive sessions with tech leaders.

Schools/Sports

Aces High Aims to be World Champ

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In the six weeks allowed for designing and building, the Suffield/Windsor Locks High Schools’ team in the FIRST Robotics Competition created a sturdy, capable robot and developed good skill in operating it. Aces High did very well in their first three meets. In the team’s favor is the general high-tech environment of this region, and the very favorable circumstance that WLHS provides the team with a well-equipped meeting space and a competent machine shop including up-to-date computer-aided machines. This year the team’s chief mentor is Peter Davis, the WLHS teacher in charge of those facilities in his day job. There are about 40 students on the team – high school level and a few middle school – with a majority from Suffield.

Schools/Sports

Superintendent’s Update

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The Suffield Public Schools is very proud of the young men and women who participate in the ACES High Robotics team. Most recently they competed in the New England District Championship and qualified for participation in the World Championships in Detroit! Below is a descriptive summary of ACES written by Steve Autieri, our 6-12 Science Curriculum Leader and ACES advisor. The ACES High Robotics team 176, comprised of students from both Suffield High School and Windsor Locks High School, recently competed and were named Connecticut District Champions in Waterbury, CT on March 9-11, 2018. The team finished the qualification matches ranked seventh out of thirty-two teams from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey competing that weekend.

Schools/Sports

SMS Gymnasts Show Their Skills

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The gymnasts of Suffield Middle School presented their annual exhibition in the school gym on April 4, with applause for notable performances from the proud audience of family and friends. For an hour and a half, the 32 students participating, singly and occasionally in pairs and small squads, demonstrated almost everything from somersaults and cartwheels to graceful floor events on the big mat and impressive feats on the balance beam, the uneven bars, suspended rings and vaulting horses. The gymnasts comprised 16 sixth graders, five from the seventh grade, and 11 from the eighth grade. As a finale, the whole crew marched out and assembled on the big mat in rows for each grade, with one member of each grade at the lead, holding a tall staff topped with a simulated Olympic torch. Perhaps someday one of them will be holding the real flame.

Schools/Sports

Suffield High School Aces Mary Poppins

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Wouldn’t it be great if every dysfunctional family could be harmonized by a magical visitor like Mary Poppins? That’s what Julie Andrews as Mary did for the Banks family in the 1964 film, and this reviewer remembers Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews well in that film and still occasionally sings the music to himself. Now he may still sample “Just a Spoonful of Sugar” or “Let’s Go Fly a Kite,” but he’ll be thinking of Olivia Grimard as Mary, whose voice in the SHS musical production was certainly outstanding. Perhaps even supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. The three performances of Mary Poppins in mid-March were replete with Mrs. Banks’ uncertainties in her wifely role, Mr. Banks’ repressive dissatisfaction as a banker, and their children’s calamitous misbehavior – all happily healed by Mary, the magical nanny.